You Better Do What They Tell Ya

Wistful childhood memories bore me. Expressing a hackneyed sense of wonderment at children, child-like faith, children growing up--anything to do with children, ever--seems like a very tired, very cliched trope. I get it, you like your kids. Unless I know you, however, I just see your mommy-blog efforts to extract some keen insight about the human condition from dirty diapers as, well, full of crap. Lest you think that I am a heartless single young man (which I do not deny), if I do know you I will check your blog like a mom sticks her nose down a toddlers bum looking for stink--that is to say frequently, often during sacrament meeting, and with a perverse familiarity.

All of this poo-poo-ing of childhood memories (scatological trifecta now in play) is meant only to prove my curmudgeon bona-fides before I launch into my own childhood nostalgia. I ran across this picture of me on my aunt's blog the other day. Today as I was sunning in front of the library, supposedly writing a paper, I recalled being about this age, playing on the floor of the basement in our small house while my mom sewed something at the counter behind me. I was incredibly shy and preferred playing with blocks over talking to people. Good times, but I don't yearn to relive them.

I like where I am now. I like sending unapologetic emails to professors--"I am going to turn my paper in late and if you don't like that, I will drop your class." I like beginning a phone convesation with an investor in Dubai by proclaiming "Look, the venture capital model is broken...." I like piping up in an electrical engineering class saying "I do not doubt that superconducting transmission cables increase the efficiency of distributing electric power, but, Mr. Sukiyaki, you haven't included the true economic cost of using liquid nitrogen to cool the core of these lines, because, as we all know, liquid nitrogen is a byproduct of steel production, and hence, your figures will not scale correctly."

I am sure this is overcompensating for a childhood spent playing alone in the sand. Sometimes I think I am only pretending to be assertive, knowing, smart, decisive, independent, and even rebellious. But despite being a small, shy, quiet mama's boy, I remember having all those qualities even then. (Like tearing my sheets into strips during one of my better tantrums.) That's why I dislike the whole genre of children-as-roadmap-to-figure-out-life writing. Kids are complicated. You think you have children figured out, but you don't. You see this picture and think "lost little boy with a droopy lip and a cowlick in his hair"--children are so innocent, guileless, and they do what you tell them. No one would guess that the toddler in this picture is judging you, scorning you, and longing to scream with Rage Against the Machine "Screw you I won't do what you tell me!"